The Difference Between Industrial Design And Design Engineering

I think that a very important distinction is being made; one that is too often ignored, as the author notes. Unfortunately, in doing so, the author falls into the DE/ID devide which claims many products prey: "My job is to design a working product and send that to an industrial designer to dress it up. " A truly well designed product must be created through highly collaborative efforts between designers and engineers. This sequential mode of "engineering" a product then "throwing it over the wall" to designers to dress it up can produce a product with poor ergonomics, gemeric form, and unappealing style. (The opposite case is also detrimantal, as the author indicates.)Any product must be treated as an integrated object with both functionality and style: highly interdependent and equally important elements.

Doug : Industrial Designer(Unregistered)10/09/08 03:03 PM

I agree with the distinction between disciplines and the Wikipedia definitions are very easy to understand. In my experience, there is some overlap (some IDs are very good engineers, some DEs are very good designers). And I am concerned with how neatly (crudely?) the author identifies the most basic fault of the designer, engineer, and the client. I feel this greatly underestimates anyone in each of these three roles.There are numerous workflow models the DE, ID, and Client can utilize to bring a new product to market. When the author definitively states "My job is to design a working product and send that to an industrial designer to dress it up." really understates (or undercuts) the fullness of a successful collaboration between these two disciplines and their responsibility to the client.The methods that develop and deliver the best products are those methods where the engineer and designer work in tandem with the client to address the elements of function, user interaction, feature set, market placement, packaging and production, material, aesthetics, etc. This is by no means a complete list. The point is, when successfully communicating and employing collaborative methods the team is able to minimize 'redesigning of parts at the client's expense', clarify the functional differences of the designer or the engineer, and the reduce the hidden costs and surprises from the client's point of view.Just my two cents...Doug

Yael(Unregistered)10/09/08 03:03 PM

The points made in this article were informative to me, someone who is grappling with the job descriptions within the product development department. As director of product development for a confectionary company, I wear many hats, taking on functions of R&D, graphic and structural design of packaging and manufacturing issues. It's helpful to see that there are actual job descriptions relating to these functions.

Greg Smith(Unregistered)10/09/08 03:03 PM

This is article is rubbish. Did this article further the state of the art? I don't think so. Any design engineer worth her salt should already know the distinction between industrial engineering and industrial design.

M. Shepherd(Unregistered)03/02/10 11:05 AM

Great info for newbies

@Greg Smith:As someone not in the field, but seeking basic information about such 'nuances,' this article was helpful to the newbie me. I'd like to go to school for DE, but most of the so-called 'tech schools' in my area are ID. I appreciate the bluntness of the article, as I'm interested in solving problems, not wasting time with colour schemes or 'trendiness.' Have anyone see the 2009 documentary 'Objectified'? What rubbish.& yes, I have the same cell ph fr 5 years ago.

Ed Straeker(Unregistered)09/11/10 05:41 AM

Inaccurate description

As a designer (ID) I began at first to think of this article as a forthright effort to compare and explain the two disciplines. However, it is clear the author has no idea what Industrial design is or it's role in the entire process. I work with DE's and in my experience they do not sit around and wait for me to throw something pretty or stylish or shiny over the wall so that they can make it work. Indeed, if that were true I'd be unemployed! (ID) and (DE) work as a team. I will concede there are people who call themselves "Industrial designers" but then ignore the issues of manufacturing and/or usability; they are not constrained those issues and thereby are "artists". They misrepresent the discipline in my opinion. What really confirms my assertion is this statement "My job is to design a working product and send that to an industrial designer to dress it up". So typical of engineering professionals who do not possess an accurate understanding of Industrial design. A good Industrial designer is excellent in his discipline AND has enough competency to understand the concerns of the design engineer (and vise versa) thereby "streamlining" the process, and hopefully reducing costs to the client. At this point the "blurring" of the two disciplines occur.

Ric Sosa(Unregistered)01/26/11 09:21 PM

a twentieth century view

This is such a great article... for Design History. The view of this author makes a great case for twentieth-century definitions of design. One can easily tell that his definitions are 25+ years old. Entirely superseded since, thankfully. Dear Agjah, it's probably the right time for retirement.

Engineering Design is general term where as industrial design is specific to some extent..there are many discipline to describe it might be industrial electrical design or industrial mechanical design or industrial civil design...

I found this article to be somewhat informative. I understand that your an engineer and that you receive designs from industrial designers that are not fully engineered and ready for tooling, manufacturing and production. The reason for this is because industrial designers are not mechanical engineers.

A better way to look at this is from the clients perspective. A proper product development company will offer both industrial design and product engineering services as one package. Ideally, the design team would be working directly with the engineering team to ensure the product that's manufactured is the same product that was introduced to the client during the final design phases.I would say that nearly all reputable design firms will be able to offer you this service as a complete package. Some of the best design firms can also offer in-house prototyping services and may even be able to offer assistance in getting your product through tooling and manufacturing with either foreign or domestic manufacturing partners.JAM-Proactive offers all of these services.http://jamproa.com